Last week I took my little brother to the movies to see Iron Man 2. He's only five, so he's growing so much every day. During the big fight scene, he pulled at my arm and (speaking some with his little open mouth, but mostly with his huge blue eyes), whispered something like "Lisa, I am so glad this is not in 3D".

That's something that happened last week. And as much as the moment fills me up, I know the specialness of it doesn't read so good to a third person. So when I crawl into the comic drawings of Aidan Koch, I wonder how he does it.

I wonder how he can take something as elusive as a moment, and neatly wrap it up in a page of loose, inky marks and quiet grey lines. Is there a secret technique to not just show someone what happened, but pull them into it with you?

I'll leave my thoughts in the comments, because they'll be as good as yours....

I’m so thrilled to start my guest writing here by showing you some never seen before glimpses of Simon Wild's sketchbooks. His work is so vibrant and full of energy.

I met him recently when he came down to London to meet us at a graphic art fair and it was great to browse through his moleskine while we were having lunch by the river. I noticed his fab website doesn’t have a sketchbook section and asked him for a few spreads and a few words on the relevance of his sketchbooks with relation to his working process.

Here’s what Mr. Wild had to say... (click to read and see)

Oh oh ooooh! How thrilled are we?

Here, I'll answer that. We are exceedingly excited, and justifiably so. We have a new guest contributor, a wonderfully talented and colorful one at that.

She's a London based illustrator and graphic designer. She loves drawing and paper cutting, she daydreams a lot and drinks tons of pink milk. She has two cats, Flash and Kitty, and they are her best friends around the workspace. She is tiny red (literally) but you might also know her as Thereza Rowe.

If you want to reacquaint yourself with Thereza's work, you can visit her portfolio, her blog, or her flickr.

Now let's throw a pen-and-paper party and give Thereza the welcome she deserves. Here's looking forward to it getting messy.

Elena Lombardi is one of my favourite names to say. It rolls off my tongue much like the lyrics of a Hanson song do. Mmmbop (maybe that reference won't cross cultural and generational gaps, but trust me, it means nice things).

Luckily I get to say her name a lot because Elena Lombardi is always producing spunky designs for me to look at and play with. With her pals at Helpful Strangers she created the cute learning game Simple Machines. Making science class not just bearable, but a good time... yes please!

She also doodles a lot. And today she's sharing her fineliner handiwork with us, in response to some silly questions I asked her about aliens and the ultimate pair of kicks.

So while I sit in the corner and say her name like its a hypnotic drum beat, please enjoy this playful interview with Elena Lombardi! Elena Lombardi, elena lombardi...

I don't know Matt Saunders (aka rabbit portal), but sometimes I feel like I do. I've been following him on twitter for months now and it's quite obvious how much passion and work he puts into his love of drawing. I really like that his lines are detailed and intricate and that there's an abundance of them.

Take the time to visit his flickr full of goodies, especially the animation stills, where he shows off his scribbles before they come to life.

We all live in our own world and see what we want to see. But Ben Heine shows us what his mind sees. He takes reality (photographs) and adds his own bit of weird and crazy (drawings) to create a different world, his very own. It's a fun battle between drawing and photography.

"You can choose to draw something in a realistic way or to rather go crazy. I personally prefer to show unreal things on the paper because the photo is a mere reflection of the world we live in," says Ben.

Found via coudal.com

Have you ever looked at someone's work and thought to yourself, "I want to DO THAT!" Randi Antonsen's work does that to me. Just look at it. All of it. She utilizes and mixes all kinds of medium (pen, pencil, ink, acrylic, watercolor, collage, etc.) and creates so much texture and depth. It's pure visual poetry. Take a look at her portfolio. There's so much good work that I don't even know what to do with myself.

Yes, it's nice to find out how an illustrator got started or what tools they use. But if you'd really like to get to know a person, you should ask them this question...

When you press an unknown button, what do you hope it will do? Really, what do you hope will happen?

After you've had a think about that, take a peek at our new Q&A series - every Sunday, all hand drawn, and a little bit silly!

First up to be interviewed is the charming Mia Chirstopher. I like that her illustrations are simple and happy, like a child who's just discovered what a pencil can do. There's also something funny and curious going on behind the lines - something that I suspect could make a sterile gallery feel as comfortable as story time.

Beautiful women are everywhere. Right now, sitting at this tiny cafe, I count 17 - most of which are showing more skin than not. So then I wonder why the beautiful women drawn by Caitlin Shearer are so fresh.

Maybe it's a little thing called class. You know, that illusive trait that made Grace Kelly a star. In Caitlin's drawings, there might be a formula to it - perhaps lush hair, dramatic eyebrows, and translucent skin maketh the classy lady.

Or maybe it's about feeling like we're peeking in on these effortless beauties in a private moment. With the internet, we're never short on pouty people showing-off for the camera... so it's nice to sleuth in on a moment of quiet. A moment that it feels like no-one else is noticing.

Oh, and there are two other things I like about Caitlin Shearer. One - she's as classy in real life as I hoped she would be (she looks a leading lady in a 50's film). Two - we can see her style evolve from all the way back in 2006, because flickr pro is awesome like that.

As of this posting, we have 1,121 members on Doodlers Anonymous and it's about damn time we show you some love (especially since we are so behind on the launch of our showcase section). Once a week, we will try to shed light on one of you. So for our first member spotlight, we'd like to show off the work of Alex Eben Meyer, who joined DA back in July 2009.

He's an illustrator working at Pencil Factory and has a sketchbook that is to die for. You can follow him on twitter, flickr or eben.com